


steal into my melancholy heart

by xinteng



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gardens & Gardening, Language of Flowers, M/M, Magic, Pendants, Pining, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27078382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xinteng/pseuds/xinteng
Summary: Every morning he watches, as the rose withers.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Zhang Yi Xing | Lay
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29
Collections: ExOnce Upon A Time: Round III





	steal into my melancholy heart

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt No:** P71  
>  **Pairing:** Yixing/Kyungsoo  
>  **Rating:** -  
>  **Prompt:** Beauty and the Beast AU  
>  **Sparks fly:** Kyungsoo as the Beast and Yixing as Belle  
>  **Toads:** -  
>  **Trigger Warnings:** -  
>  **Relevant Links & Information: ** -
> 
> dear prompter, I really hope you enjoy this fic! I love beauty and the beast, and went with a very nontraditional method of writing this tale, so I hope you still like it! thank you to the mods for hosting, I had a lovely time writing this. much love to L for all the encouragment. the title is from _evermore_ from the 2017 beauty and the beast remake.
> 
> **written for round 3 of exonceuponatime**  
> 

When he woke, it was dark.

The wind whistled coldly through the room, stone damp against his cheek with the evening’s chill. The curtains fluttered in the wind, torn at the edges and glass scattered around his figure.

There was an uncomfortable stiffness to his back, and he shivered as the wind touched him—slowly, he pushed himself up, and paused, with dawning horror, looked at himself.

The first thing he registered was the fur, then the claws—massive, curling, _ugly_ things that looked like they belonged more on a beast than on a man—then gingerly, as he looked down, his new height and the stoop to his back.

Across the room was a mirror, and with rising dread, he approached it.

A scream, angry and anguished, tears across the peace of the morning.

🥀

The rose sits in a glass case beside his bed.

Every morning he rises to sunlight slipping through the cracks of the heavy curtains, despite Baekhyun and Jongdae’s best efforts to draw them completely closed at night, refracting off of the glass in little beams of light that hurt his eyes.

The rose sits, a mockery of the beautiful flowers that he tends to in the garden.

Every morning, he watches, as the rose withers.

🥀

The people usually come during midday—when the sun shines brightest overhead, the bees humming lazily around the flowers, gathering nectar. Sometimes it’s a whole group of frivolous friends, other times couples, who want to pick flowers for their lovers. Hardly anyone ever comes alone—Kyungsoo knows the rumors that fly around the little village, the ones that speak of a curse, of a _beast_ —so when a young man pushes open the little wooden gate that creaks when it moves, he is more than a little wary.

It’s not the first time people have come for more than the food in his gardens. There have been those daring enough to try to set foot inside the mansion, only to be scared away by Baekhyun and Jongdae, who have taken it upon themselves to guard the house—and by extension, Kyungsoo—religiously. There have also been those who have looked for something more—whispers of a cure-all magical plant have long been stirring not only in the village but also further—who have called for Kyungsoo (though not with his name, for no one knows it anymore) to reveal himself.

He never does, of course. They never get close enough to try—Baekhyun and Jongdae are very good at their job, though Kyungsoo will never tell them that.

The man’s steps are assured—he spares Kyungsoo’s precious garden not even a second glance as he walks by, heading directly for the front door of the mansion. From his vantage point at the highest tower, he can still see the edge of his figure, half shadowed by the awning. The man shuffles his feet nervously, finally taking the time to look around—Kyungsoo ducks quickly away from the window, letting the curtain fall back to cover the sun.

Darkness envelops the room.

It suits him.

🥀

When he finds the same young man from yesterday in his kitchen, chatting animatedly with Baekhyun (the _traitor_ , Kyungsoo’s mind helpfully supplies), Kyungsoo clears his throat, hoping one glance at him will scare the man off.

The man turns, confused, before recognizing his figure standing in the doorframe, and scrambles out of his chair. Kyungsoo allows a corner of his lip to twitch upwards in bitter amusement. He hadn’t expected much—even he can’t stand the sight of himself, all the mirrors in the mansion having been long covered with heavy drapes.

But to his surprise the man comes to a halt in front of him, sinking into a bow so low that the edges of his jacket, well-worn and well-loved, sweep the floor at his feet. “My apologies,” he says formally.

Kyungsoo stares. No one has bowed to him since—well, since _before_. It’s only when he sees Jongdae frantically gesturing and waving at him to speak behind the man does he clear his throat again and say, gruffly, “Who are you?”

From the way Baekhyun heaves a giant sigh at Jongdae, Kyungsoo figures that it isn’t quite the right thing to say. “My name is Yixing,” the man says, as he finally rises from his bow. Kyungsoo studies the wavy mess of his hair, the gentleness of his fingers as they twist nervously around the hem of his shirt, the sleep soft of his dark eyes.

This man— _Yixing_ —he reminds himself, doesn’t seem to be a threat. But it doesn’t mean that he is welcome.

An acrid taste rises up in the back of his throat, and it burns. Suddenly he isn’t hungry anymore. He pivots on his heel and marches right back out, ignoring the calls from Yixing and Jongdae.

🥀

Baekhyun and Jongdae aren’t the only staff members who tend to Kyungsoo’s mansion, though they’re certainly the ones that hang around Kyungsoo most often. But for the last few days, he’s seen little of them, and though he’ll never admit to missing their chatter, he does find the quiet to be unsettling. The quiet is when his old fears come back to whisper in his ear and when his mind dredges up the past, tempting him to tear off the dusty coverings over the paintings in the mansion and stare at them, to purposefully press against the bruise in his chest and relish the ache.

Instead, he asks Chanyeol if he’s seen head or tail of Baekhyun or Jongdae recently. “You didn’t know?” he says, when questioned, and when Kyungsoo shakes his head, Chanyeol points him in the direction of the east wing of the mansion, which has largely remained untouched since—

He stops that train of thought.

Slowly, heavily, he walks towards the wing, where he can see a small crack of light shining through into the corridor. He’s about to call out for them, when he hears them speaking with someone else. The voice sounds familiar—he creeps closer.

Through the gap in the doorway, he sees Jongdae and Baekhyun’s backs, and then a mop of messy hair hunched over by the foot of the bed. _Yixing,_ his mind supplies, and an undercurrent of anger runs through him, for Baekhyun and Jongdae were supposed to have gotten rid of him ages ago.

“Kyungsoo can be rather cold,” Kyungsoo hears through the crack, and he decides right then and there that Baekhyun’s fired. “But he’s really nice, once he warms up to you. You just have to give him more time.”

He’s about to push his way in furiously before he stops as Yixing’s words strike him. “But I don’t have any more time.”

Baekhyun and Jongdae murmur something in reply to Yixing, but Kyungsoo doesn’t hear any of it, his ears buzzing. Slowly, he slips back into the shadows, where his feet tread the familiar path back to his own wing of the mansion. And when he wakes up the next morning, he will admit to no one the way that Yixing’s voice, desperate and sad, had echoed in his head all night.

🥀

He brushes the heavy drapery aside—bright light slants in, lighting up the dust motes floating in the air, and Kyungsoo coughs as he waves a hand in front of him _._ “Baekhyun,” he growls under his breath. He really does treat his staff well, for how little work they actually do. He wonders how they spend their days—though they aren’t technically trapped in the mansion, it would be a little hard to travel anywhere, seeing as they’re all trapped in the forms of houseware. With a pang of guilt, he wonders if they are lonely, if they miss the feeling of being able to walk on two feet and doing mundane things, _normal_ things.

Though, as he looks out, he supposes not.

Baekhyun and Jongdae—and _Chanyeol_ too, he notes with an eye roll—are all in the garden below, huddled closely together and talking, with none too surreptitious glances towards Yixing, who is walking around Kyungsoo’s gardens, occasionally bending down to look at the flowers and reaching up to rub a tree leaf between his fingers.

He jerks the curtains closed, and darkness envelops him once more. Stalking angrily to the rose entrapped in its glass cage, he stares at the flower, watching as a petal begins to brown, then shrivel, before falling away to join the ones that have already decayed. An answering pang resounds in his heart, and minutely, he feels his body becoming weaker. His hands tremble, and he grips the table that the rose rests on tightly, digging his sharp claws into the grain of the wood.

Closing his eyes, he inhales deeply, and with an exhale, opens his eyes once more, letting go of the desk and pacing out of the room.

Behind his retreating back, another petal begins to wilt.

🥀

“What is he here for,” he asks Jongdae, when he finally manages to corner him in the kitchens. He gets the feeling that all of his staff have been doing their best to stay out of his way lately, though he knows that they will all deny it if he asks.

To his credit, Jongdae doesn’t cower away from Kyungsoo’s (admittedly) poor mood. “It’s not my secret to tell,” he shrugs, and Kyungsoo groans. He doesn’t bother pressing him for any more information, as he knows he won’t get it. There’s no point in interrogating Baekhyun or Chanyeol either—Jongdae is good with his secrets, and at keeping others to them as well. A prickle of irritation runs down his spine.

“Fine,” he spits, and if his hand accidentally knocks down a few wine glasses as he sweeps out, Jongdae doesn’t comment.

🥀

He peers out the window again for the fourth time in ten minutes. As soon as he sees Yixing in the garden, he sweeps the curtains closed again, angry with himself. It’s _his_ mansion, _his_ property, _his_ life, and he refuses to feel like a stranger, a prisoner in his own home.

Dramatically, he sweeps the curtains open again, wincing at the light.

When his eyes finally readjust, he finds Yixing watching him carefully from the garden. He glares. Yixing waves.

With a growl, he yanks the drapes closed once more.

If he sulks, there’s no one around to see it.

🥀

More and more people have been coming to his gardens recently, he notices, and he blames it entirely on Yixing. The fool is out there every day, guiding people to different plants and flowers, as if it’s _his_ house. And Baekhyun enables him (Kyungsoo is _really_ going to fire him), shoving baskets of fresh produce in his hands to pass out to the people who come lining up at the gate.

Chanyeol is a traitor too, Kyungsoo knows, because he’s also stumbled on him and Yixing cleaning up the mansion itself, sweeping its floors and clearing cobwebs that have probably been there since it was built.

🥀

At night, he dons a cloak and a pair of well worn trousers and boots to head out to his garden. Carefully, he tends to the little patch of daisies that have sprouted along the edges of the gate, weeding them and watering them. A nightingale sings his song in the dark—he lets out a small smile before whistling softly back at him. He checks on his vegetable patch: peas and carrots, cucumbers and peppers, then his fruit trees: peaches, lemons, apples.

Plucking a peach from one of the lower branches, he rubs it gently on his shirt before taking a bite and relishing the juice that floods his mouth, sticky sweet. He makes his way to his favorite flowers, the honeysuckles, fragrant in the warm night air.

He breathes deeply, at peace.

🥀

When he looks out the window the next morning, he sees Yixing trailing his fingers along the honeysuckles wonderingly. A flower lands gently on his head, and even from the distance, Kyungsoo can see the small, surprised smile on his face as he reaches up to pick it off.

Kyungsoo looks away.

🥀

He finds Yixing in the garden examining his plants carefully, touching each with gentle fingers, rubbing soil between his fingers and leaning in to smell the hydrangeas bunched in vibrant bursts of color. The night is warm—cicadas chirp noisily in the trees and the moon shines bright overhead.

His shadow casts a large, rough shadow across Yixing’s figure, and when Yixing catches sight of it, he turns to look up at him. Though Kyungsoo is unhappy that Yixing has—for whatever reason—decided to take up permanent residence in his house, he isn’t blatantly rude. When it doesn’t look like Kyungsoo has anything to say to him, Yixing sighs and turns back to the plants. “I love flowers,” he says, wistful. “When I was little, my best friend and I used to run out to the woods when we were supposed to be doing our chores and play there. Sometimes we would collect plants for my mom—she was a healer, you see—and she went around to our village to heal people who were sick. My mom took care of both of us—my best friend didn’t have a family, and he became like a brother to me.”

Kyungsoo moves to sit down next to Yixing. It’s a little awkward, standing over him while the other is hunched over in the dirt. The wind brushes gently through the trees, ruffling Yixing’s hair and the fur on Kyungsoo’s body. He crosses his arms over his chest, uncomfortable. Yixing leans back, the palms of his hands firmly pressed on the dirt behind him, and looks up at the night sky. “She passed away a few years ago.” Yixing’s voice is soft, but Kyungsoo still hears him clearly. A familiar twinge of pain vibrates in his chest—he pushes it back down.

The silence stretches long.

Kyungsoo clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Yixing turns to look at him. “Don’t be,” he replies, and then smiles, picking a few blades of grass and twirling them in his fingers, tying them in knots only to untie them again. “She died peacefully.”

He doesn’t know what makes him say it—perhaps it’s out of envy of the look on Yixing’s face, the open vulnerability and utter _trust_ —but he offers, “My mother died too. So did my father. In the same accident.”

Yixing’s hands still.

It’s been so long since he’s talked about it with someone else—Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Chanyeol don’t count—and it’s freeing, to open that little box of hurt he had locked away inside himself and pretended didn’t exist, and to share his secrets with this strange boy, a boy who looks like moonlight and purity, and everything Kyungsoo has ever wanted to keep for his own. “They were supposed to go on a trip—I was just shy of turning nine, and they had gone to pick up something special for my birthday, and they never came back. I found out later that it hadn’t been an accident—it was a plot from someone who had wanted to possess this.” Slowly, he unbuttons the collar of his shirt, just enough so he can draw out the small pendant hanging near his heart. A blood-red rose, delicate, rests lightly in the palm of his hand, and Yixing leans closer to peer at it. “It offers protection,” he says, and he squeezes it tightly, feeling the edges cut into the roughness of his hand. “It was my mother’s—she had left it with me when they left, just in case, and he had attacked my parents on their journey, because he hadn’t been able to reach them when they were home.” He gestures vaguely to the mansion behind him, and inhales shakily. “There are old ancestral charms in the foundation of the house. It’s been passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter, father to son. If they hadn’t left—” he pauses, and stares at his hands, the misshapen swell of his knuckles, the course fur that covers them.

A hand, small and pale and slender, slips into them. Kyungsoo shudders. He can feel Yixing’s warmth seeping into his skin. “It’s not your fault,” Yixing says quietly, and scoots closer, so that their clothes brush.

And though the words come from someone that he hardly knows, somehow, Kyungsoo believes him.

🥀

“My best friend is dying,” Yixing says, when Kyungsoo comes up behind him. “I’ve run out of time,” his voice dies to a whisper, as he turns to face him. Kyungsoo studies him silently, the fear and the hope that shine in his eyes. Behind him, the rose lies, ensconced in its crystal cage. He doesn’t bother asking how Yixing had managed to get into his chambers—he doesn’t care anymore.

“My life is tied to this rose,” he says, and suddenly, he feels tired and old, like age has crept up silently behind him and finally managed to catch him. “This and the pendant are all I have left.”

Yixing looks shocked for a moment, before his face crumples and all the eager hope that had been in his eyes dissolves. He looks down.

When he looks back up, Kyungsoo shudders at the deadness to his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, and Yixing’s face is shuttered and lined, no longer the young man who had wandered into his mansion, weeks ago. “I can’t give you the rose. I should have told you weeks ago.” For a moment, Kyungsoo wonders if that his curse—that he ages people, saps their life from them and makes them rot from the inside out. _I’m sorry_ , he wants to roar, to scream, to shake Yixing until he understands that he would give him the rose if he could, if he wasn’t so afraid that the healing power of the rose also carries with it his terrible curse. “I’m sorry,” he says instead, and he surprises himself with how steady his voice comes out.

Yixing turns away and shrugs, acting nonchalant, but his voice betrays him when it cracks, and he can only manage a whisper. “It’s not your fault.” The same words from the other night, though with an entirely different meaning underlying them. Yixing reaches up to touch his shoulder, and Kyungsoo tenses before he relaxes, allowing Yixing’s hand to sit there, his warmth to soak through his fur and beneath his skin.

They sit there until dawn rises.

🥀

On the morning that Yixing is to leave, Kyungsoo rushes downstairs to intercept him at the door. (He had made quite the scene, scaring Chanyeol so badly that he had fallen over in shock). In his hand is a handful of petals, ruby red and glowing faintly in his palm. He thrusts them at Yixing, who stares at him, flummoxed.

“What?” he says, looking down at the petals and looking back up at Kyungsoo. He’s pale, and if Kyungsoo didn’t feel so weak, he would have laughed at the look on his face. (It would have been the first time he’s laughed in years).

“They’re for you,” he says, and presses them into Yixing’s hand, wrapping Yixing’s fingers around them carefully. “They’re from the rose—I don’t. I don’t know if it will help your friend, but it’s the most I could spare. Take it, they’re safe to use,” he urges, when Yixing still hasn’t moved, hasn’t broken eye contact with Kyungsoo. “Go,” he pushes him slightly now, “you’re in a rush. Your friend needs them.”

This seems to break Yixing out of his trance, and Kyungsoo lets out a surprised grunt as Yixing wraps his arms around Kyungsoo and squeezes him tightly. Self-conscious, but secretly more than a little flattered, Kyungsoo pats him awkwardly on the back. “Thank you,” Yixing says softly, muffled into his shirt. He pretends not to notice the traces of tears in Yixing’s eyes as he pulls away. “I will never be able to repay you for this.”  
_You don’t have to_ , Kyungsoo wants to say. _You have done more for me than you will ever know_.

Instead, he gives Yixing a small smile. “I wish you safe travel. I hope your friend recovers well.” He bows to him slightly, an imitation of the way Yixing had bowed to him when he had first arrived.

As Yixing rides out on his white horse, Kyungsoo watches his back disappear into the tall grass until the swaying leaves swallow him whole.

🥀

He wakes in the mornings, and wonders if it was all a dream—sometimes, when he looks out into the garden, he fancies that he can still see that wavy head of hair weaving in and out between the hedges out of the corner of his eye. Fall sweeps her way in, disrobing the trees of their clothing, and then, all too soon, winter, with her chilled kiss.

Powdered snow dusts the ground, and his garden wilts—people stop coming to the mansion altogether, for without the plants, there is no purpose, and a wistful sort of dampness hangs in the air, seeping into every corner of the mansion. The nights grow longer and the days grow shorter, and day by day, hour by hour, Kyungsoo wakes with an unbearable tightness in his chest.

He spends most of his time staring at the rose—a cruel sort of torture, he thinks, to literally watch his life wither away—and half dreading, half hoping for the fall of the next petal. Better for it to end quickly, he thinks, glancing around at the massive room that has always felt too empty.

One morning, Kyungsoo wakes with a cough. He grips the pendant that hangs around his neck tightly, and when it pricks him, he startles before taking it off to study it. In the massiveness of his hand—his paw, he reminds himself—the pendant is tiny, and he squints at it, sun refracting off its little petals and embellished edges. When he holds it up to the light, dread sinks into his heart. The pendant is fractured, no longer the vibrant ruby red it had been before, when he had showed it to Yixing—it’s dark now, like blood after it has congealed, and there are little lines and cracks that run through the rose’s heart.

He closes his fingers slowly around the pendant, and lies back down, sinking into his pillows, childishly pulling his blankets up around his head, the way he used to when he was upset with his parents and had wanted to hide away. His only thought is that the curse must have advanced too far, that despite all its power, even the pendant cannot protect him from himself.

Baekhyun and Jongdae fuss over him, while Chanyeol spends all day making various batches of soups and remedies that he claims will cure him immediately, but though their words are comforting, Kyungsoo knows deep down that this is the beginning of the end. He is ordered to stay in bed by Jongdae, but when he props himself up on his pillows he can still see the rose in its casket, and clearly count how many petals are left.

He knows that the others know as well, based on their nervous glances towards the rose when they think Kyungsoo isn’t looking, and his chest swells with warmth at the way they pretend everything is fine as they try to reassure him. _It’s okay_ , he wants to promise them, but he can’t, because he doesn’t know what will happen to them once he is gone. He finds that it’s that which worries him more than any concern over his own health.

🥀

The air is still, soft for the golden light that streams through the gaps in the curtains. Dust particles float through the air and Kyungsoo watches through bleary eyes as they drift dreamily in the sun. A shadow falls over him, then, and when his eyes travel back up to find the source, he can only see a slender figure, head haloed in warmth. A hand touches his forehead gently, and another slips into his own, fingers interlacing naturally. “Kyungsoo,” the angel breathes, and cool fingers trace down the slope of his nose, brush tenderly across his cheek to the underside of his jaw. He can’t help it—he leans into the touch.

Kyungsoo closes his eyes, at peace.

🥀

He drifts between dreams—in some he is young again, watching as his parents leave, feeling the warmth of his mother’s arms as she kisses him goodbye and promises to return soon. In others, he spends hours in the garden with Yixing, talking to him about things he cannot remember when he wakes up. In others still, he returns to memories of crushing loneliness, of sleepless nights spent staring at the rose and the _hate_ , the deep bitterness that constantly threatened to overwhelm him.

But in the moments he wakes, his nightmares recede and for a desperate, delusional moment, he thinks he sees Yixing fussing over him, murmuring soft words with a fond expression on his face.

🥀

A soft touch wakes him—he blinks blearily and reaches up to rub at his eyes. He sits upright with nary a thought, and it takes him a moment before realizing that he feels _good_. Like he did before he got sick. Like he did, before the curse.

He glances around the room—there are less dirty dishes scattered on the tables than he had expected, and he allows himself a small smile at how frantic Jongdae and Chanyeol must have been, to keep the place as tidy as possible. His casual gaze around the room pauses on a slight figure with dark, wavy hair, slumped over on a wooden chair close to his bed, and his heart jumps in his chest.

He throws the blankets back and stands up, before bringing a hand up to his forehead to check for any heat, convinced that this must be a fever dream. There is nothing—he seems to be in perfect health.

Just when he is about to wake Yixing up, a knock sounds on the door. Chanyeol pokes his head in, or at least, as much as he can in the form of a feather duster. “Kyungsoo,” he exclaims loudly, but quickly shuts up when Kyungsoo glares at him and then looks in Yixing’s direction pointedly. “Oh,” he says, sounding surprised, “sorry.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, but he can’t even pretend to be that angry, still too overwhelmed with the knowledge that Yixing has _come back_.

Yixing groans, then lifts his head up from where it had been slumped over on the nightstand. Kyungsoo watches him with more than a little fondness. “Hi,” he says, when he notices that they’re all staring at him. Then he jumps, and Kyungsoo watches as awareness trickles back into Yixing’s eyes. “Kyungsoo,” he breathes, and stands up quickly, moving over to him so that they are chest to chest. Stunned, Kyungsoo can do nothing but freeze as Yixing brings a hand up to gently card through his hair, then tracing his hand around his cheek and cupping his chin, like he’s committing Kyungsoo’s face to memory.

“You came back,” Kyungsoo says, stupidly, when he feels overwhelmed by the weight of Yixing’s gaze. “How—” he remembers, “how is your friend?”

“Lu Han?” Yixing smiles, and _god,_ Kyungsoo has forgotten how radiant and beautiful he is when his eyes crinkle like that and his cheeks indent in the deepest dimples he’s ever seen. “He’s doing well. He asked me to pass on his thanks, actually. He wouldn’t have made it without those petals.”

A part of Kyungsoo’s heart shatters.

He takes a step back and turns around, feeling utterly foolish. Of _course_ Yixing had only come back to express his thanks. There had never been any other motive—he had been idiotic to think that Yixing could ever love him, and especially not as a beast. Anger starts bleeding through his heart, and he steals a glance at the rose still encased in its glass prison across the room. It doesn’t take him long to count how many petals are left, there are so few. Even as he watches, a petal wavers slightly, and drops off.

“Hey,” a small hand encircles his wrist, and pulls him back.

He stares at the fingers, wrapped tightly around his wrist, and then follows the pale arm up to strong shoulders and a slender neck, then up, to pink lips and a straight nose, then dark eyes that are pleading and yet full of warmth.

He waits.

Yixing stares at him a beat longer, then surprises him by pulling him close with both hands, then pressing their lips together. Kyungsoo breathes in—Yixing smells like his favorite flowers, the honeysuckle scent just as sweet as Yixing tastes. “Silly,” Yixing breathes, when they finally break apart. “I love you.”

A wind blows through the room, and though it is mid-winter, it is warm as it caresses Kyungsoo’s face. A loud shattering makes him turn towards where he knows the rose is, and he watches, dumbfounded as the case splinters into millions of tiny pieces. The petals, brown and withered from where they had long lay at the base of the rose, slowly start to bleed red once more, growing plump and satin soft like they had never died in the first place. They swirl in the air lightly before the stem of the rose disappears entirely, leaving only crimson petals in its place, and slowly, they melt together with a warm light that forces Kyungsoo to turn away.

When he dares to open his eyes once more, he looks at Yixing, who is smiling softly at him. Tugging him lightly by the hand, Yixing leads him over to where the rose used to lay.

“Look,” he says softly, and his voice is full of wonder as he picks up something from the table that Kyungsoo can’t quite see.

Yixing holds it up to the light.

A small rose pendant stares back at him, nearly identical to the one his mother had given to him, the one that still laid cracked around his neck. Yixing drops it gently into Kyungsoo’s hand, and he stares with wonder at the pendant, reaching around his own neck to tug off the original. As he examines them side by side, he notes that the new one is fuller than the original, and has two roses, one large, like the original, and a new, smaller one, so twined around the larger one’s stem that he can’t tell where one begins and the other ends. Kyungsoo squeezes Yixing’s hand, still laced through his own, once, twice, three times.

Yixing smiles at him, then stands up on his tiptoes to kiss him softly on his forehead. “I love you,” Kyungsoo whispers back, quiet, for fear his voice would crack on the words. “I love you.”

The pendant goes warm in his hand, and a golden mist begins to whirl around Kyungsoo. Yixing steps back, and they both watch in wonder as Kyungsoo’s claws begin to recede, his teeth reduce, his knuckles shrink. His hair becomes shorter, and his skin smoothens, until he is the person he once was, a lifetime ago.

His hands come up to touch his face wonderingly. He is no longer a boy—he no longer knows what he looks like. With apprehension, he glances up at Yixing, who is still staring at him in shock.

With a gasp, Yixing throws his arms around him, and Kyungsoo relaxes at the feel of Yixing’s skin against his own. He meets Kyungsoo’s gaze directly, thumb tracing his lips slowly, as if he is unaware he is doing it. “Your eyes are the same,” he says, own eyes soft and wondering, “they’re kind.”

Unbidden, Kyungsoo starts to feel the beginning of tears pricking at his own eyes. They stand, wrapped in each other’s embrace for minutes, only breaking apart when they hear Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Chanyeol whooping and screaming down the hall in excitement over regaining their human forms.

They look at each other in fond amusement before they both burst out laughing.

🌹

The honeysuckle is thriving—little bees buzz happily in its sweet fragrance, and he pulls Yixing under the flowers, kissing him lushly and threading his fingers through his soft hair.

Yixing reaches up, mindful of the bees, and plucks a few flowers, smelling them with a sigh of contentment before tucking them behind Kyungsoo’s ear.

“Pretty,” he comments, a mischievous look in his eye before he presses a quick kiss to the tip of Kyungsoo’s nose, then darting away before Kyungsoo can catch him for another proper kiss.

Kyungsoo laughs, and Yixing turns to flash him a smile when he hears, before continuing to make his way over to Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Chanyeol, who seem to be surreptitiously looking at them over their afternoon tea.

He reaches up to rub the rose pendant settled over his heart, then smiles to himself before he walks over to join Yixing.

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> quick note on the meaning of honeysuckle:  
>  _happiness and devoted affection_
> 
> thank you for reading!   
> find me here:   
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/staryxz)  
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/yixingzhang)


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